


the boy locked below

by ADyingFlower



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Captivity, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Codependency, Dark Keith (Voltron), Dark Lance (Voltron), Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Grooming, M/M, Mindfuck, Minor Allura/Lance (Voltron), Non-Explicit Sex, Obsession, Pedophilia, Power Dynamics, Psychological Horror, Stockholm Syndrome, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:47:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24371548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADyingFlower/pseuds/ADyingFlower
Summary: Keith turns on his heel, swinging his arms behind his back as he stares at the thick metal door between him and the rest of the basement. He grins, the chain on his ankle rattling as he waves goodbye to the man who already left. “Bye-bye, Lance.”The McClains are a normal family with working parents and happy children, except for one little dirty secret, hidden away securely in the basement.Today, once again, Keith eagerly awaits Lance's return.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 108





	the boy locked below

**Author's Note:**

> Soundtrack for the fic: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzFflXzSujYRcfZ9CdIz27wWgRAh2s0pI

Lance is humming. 

Keith sits up slowly on their blood stained mattress, rubbing his eyes with a jaw cracking yawn as the bright green blanket pools around his lap, wincing at the sharp ache in his lower back. Early morning sunlight passes hazily through the cracks of the thick sheets of cardboard taped over the sole window in the room, high enough that Keith can’t reach it even when he stands on his tippy toes. He shivers at the cold air outside his blanket cocoon, slowly climbing to his feet and rubbing his bare legs urgently, already wanting to climb back under their blanket where it was warm and comfy. 

His toes wiggle against the rug in the center of the room in search of warmth; Lance once told him that it had farm animals on it, but it’s been faded for years now and only thin shapes remain even when he squints right at it. Hopping from animal to animal, Keith giggles to himself even when he lands back on the freezing brown tiles that decorate the room from floor to ceiling. 

The ever constant rattling sound accompanies him as he tip toes his way to the bathroom, peeking his head around the doorframe with his hair sliding down his neck. Lance is already awake and dressed for the day, running a comb through his hair as he hums at himself in the plastic mirror. Their eyes meet in the glass, and Lance’s blue ones crinkle up happily at the sight of him. 

“Good morning, darling.” He whispers fondly, and Keith smiles goofily. 

“Good morning Lance!” Keith chirps, throwing his arms around Lance’s waist. Lance coos at him, running his hand down his tangled hair and pressing a kiss to the crown of his head. “I had a weird dream.”

“Oh, did you now?” Lance blinks down at him with his lips curved gently up, taking his small hand with a kiss brushed against the tips of his fingers before leading him back to the main room. “Why don’t you tell me about it while I make you some breakfast?” 

Keith rattles on and on about his dream, sitting on his chair with his hands waving wildly while Lance sets down his red plastic plate and cup, already filled with apple juice. He does get a smack on his thigh when he tries to drink it without saying ‘thank you’ like a good boy, but Lance forgives him with an easy smile and another kiss on his head. 

Breakfast is toast with butter from the fridge, and he bites into it with a happy hum while Lance sits next to him in his chair and drinks his coffee he heated up in Keith’s microwave. Lance once let him have a sip of it, and Keith couldn’t get the taste off his tongue for _hours_! It’s so nasty! 

Lance leans back in his chair just as Keith is finishing his last bites of his toast, eyes on the clock above the door. “Well, I have to head out now, Allura and the girls should be waking up soon.” 

“…Oh.” Keith hurriedly sips at his cup to distract himself, rubbing the sole of his foot back and forth along the metal edges of the table. “Will you come back tonight?” 

“Of course!” Lance kneels down next to him, holding his shoulders firmly and forcing him to look him in his eyes. “No matter what happens, I will _always_ come back for you, okay?” 

Keith stares at him desperately for a moment, before his shaking hands rise up, clinging to the creases of Lance’s work shirt with his heart aching. “Okay,” he finally mumbles quietly, and Lance smooths his hands down his arms with a sad noise, hooking their fingers together gently. 

They butt foreheads together softly, cracking gentle smiles as Lance plays with his fingers with a content smile on his face. “You know I wish we could spend all our time like this.” Lance whispers against his mouth, his eyelashes fluttering, like little butterfly kisses against his skin. 

“I know you can’t.” Keith says just as softly, squeezing his eyes shut with a quiet whimper. Lance hushes him soothingly, but it never dulls the sharp pain in his belly. 

“Someday.” Lance fervently promises him, stroking his thumb against the faint scars around his wrists. “Someday it’ll be just you and me. I’ll take you far away from everything, to the countryside where nobody can ever find us again.” 

Keith squeezes his eyes tightly shut as Lance pulls him into a hug, pushing his head down into his shoulder. He wraps his arms around the adult, hiding his face away, as if they could merge the two of them together forever, never to be separated again. 

But eventually Lance has to leave, and he brushes his hand against Keith’s cheek once, gently touching their lips together, before turning Keith around by his upper arms until he faces the far wall. “I love you, darling.” Lance murmurs in his ear, his warm breaths blowing against it as he scatters kisses down his neck and into the crook of his shoulder. 

Then he’s gone, the beeps of the code entered into the keypad, and then Lance hurries through the sole door, swiftly locking it behind him, always half terrified that Keith will bolt at the slightest chance of freedom. But he only tips his head up, eyes crinkling at the dust motes floating through the stray shafts of light as he listens fondly to Lance's retreating footsteps. 

Keith turns on his heel, swinging his arms behind his back as he stares at the thick metal door between him and the rest of the basement. He grins, the chain on his ankle rattling as he waves goodbye to the man who already left. “Bye-bye, Lance.”

Allura and the girls are always loud in the morning, yelling and rushing around to get ready for school and work. Keith stands on the nailed down table, his hand braced behind his ear to listen in on them. He tunes out their loud and frankly annoying chatter, focusing all of his attention on the low timber of Lance’s voice as he makes them breakfast and helps them brush their teeth and tie their shoelaces. 

He glances down at his own bare feet, as all he’s wearing is just wearing a long sleeve white shirt with his underwear that has little trains printed over the loose fabric. It’s winter now, so maybe he’ll ask Lance for some warm pajamas again; he outgrew the ones from last year so Lance just tore them up and stuffed their pillows with the scraps. 

Waving his right foot around, the cuff locked to his ankle by another keypad clunks and clicks and clangs, the chain following after it swaying with every movement. He follows the dark links with his eyes, right to the metal plate almost melded into the ground in the center of the room. 

Keith didn’t always wear his ankle chain, he muses, before perking up at the sound of them heading towards the front door. 

Hopping off the table with a cheerful hum, he skips across the room to the only window, covered with a sheet of cardboard and dark bars so narrow he can barely fit a hand between them. He can’t reach it even when standing on his tippy toes, but the chairs aren’t nailed down, so he grabs Lance’s on the way towards the window and drops it with a loud exaggerated huff. He's really out of shape. 

Keith climbs up the chair, grabbing the corner of the cardboard and peeling it back. Lance always blames the corner constantly popping up on the tape losing its stickiness because of the wet and heavy air down here, but it’s really because Keith always watches the family leave every morning, eyes glued on Lance’s smile as he holds onto one of his daughter’s hands and boosts her up into her car seat. He kisses Allura on the mouth before they go their separate ways to work and school in different cars, like they do every morning, and Keith watches them raptly as Lance rolls down the windows to play loud pop music even Keith can hear through several feet of cement, all the way until Lance’s car disappears down the street and out of sight. 

Sighing longingly, Keith retapes the corner and jumps down, stretching his arms out for a few seconds before dragging the chair back to the table. Spinning around absently in the center of the small room, he leans down and taps his toes several times, cracking his back and warming the sluggish blood running inside him. Because he feels like it, he even does a handstand with a little help from the wall, holding it until his arms tremble and his head feels hazy. 

He doesn’t do much exercise down here, certainly not as much as he did upstairs, so he gets tired easily, legs already aching when he lets them drop back to the ground. For a minute, he misses running with a deep pain in his chest, but he shakes his head, smacking his cheeks and forcing himself to smile. Maybe he’ll do some art instead! 

Keith stares at the tiled walls for a long moment with his handful of short and stubby crayons kept safe in a plastic bin under the counter, craning his head back as his narrowed eyes travel over the countless scribbles he’s made over the years. Or he thinks it’s been years. Time runs kind of funny down here; all he knows is that he’s always cold and always missing Lance. 

Where should he start today?

At around eight, when he’s been on his belly for a couple of hours doodling little fuzzballs with mustaches in a good blank spot by the minifridge, the camera in the corner turns on with a red blink. He hurriedly sits up, waving excitedly at Lance watching him through the lenses, smiling brightly before the light flickers off. Lance will probably check on him a couple more times before work really starts, so he goes back to his tough work of coloring in their yellow fur. 

When he’s done, he refills his cup with juice from the minifridge, bundling the blanket around his shoulders as he bustles around the small kitchen area. It’s just a minifridge and a microwave, with a small counter with snacks he can grab and a toaster Lance leaves high up. Lance once told him he’ll install a whole _stove_ when he’s bigger, with an oven on the bottom so he can bake stuff with Lance like they used to upstairs.

Holding his cup between his tingling hands, he shambles his way over to the bean bag chair in the corner, with the small TV with it’s rabbit ears propped up on a couple of cardboard boxes in front of it. Apparently the chair used to belong to one of Lance’s girls, but instead of throwing it out, Lance just gave it to him instead. A lot of Keith’s things are old things of the girls, from his toys to his clothes to his furniture. It’s hard for Lance to buy stuff for him, Keith knows, but he does wish he could have more toys and games. Something to fill the hours when Lance is busy at work and the girls and _Allura_. 

It’s comfy, at least, he thinks happily as he turns on the TV, content to snuggle back with the blanket pulled over his shoulders and watch morning cartoons. The signal fades in and out a couple times, and he pouts every time, struggling out of his warm nest to pull and twist the bunny ears to try and bring it back. 

Not for the first time, he wishes the room was just a tiny bit bigger, just so he could do cartwheels or something like that. There's the big metal door in the center of the wall, with the kitchen on one side of and the bean bag chair in the other. Pressed up right against the beanbag chair was the messy mattress, and across from that was the small bathroom. Between the bathroom and the mattress was the only window, and the only source of light besides the lamp lamp next to the mattress, but he couldn't turn that on until Lance came downstairs just in case one of the girls was outside and saw the cracks of light. 

The clock keeps ticking onward and onward, his eyes glancing over to it every couple of minutes. When class finally starts for the day and the red light of the camera flickers off for good this time, Keith turns the TV off, rolling his shoulders back as he heads towards the bathroom. He plops down on the edge of the tub, propping his right foot up on the cabinet under the sink as he narrows his eyes down at the keypad. 

Keith smiles to himself, and types in the sixteen digit password without flinching. 

The cuff buzzes once, and unlocks itself with a small click. He rotates his stiff foot, stretching out his scarred ankle as he climbs to his feet with a long stretch, peeking his head around the doorframe towards the camera in the corner.

The camera is turned off; Lance is busy teaching and can’t check on him.

Letting out a puff of air, Keith scurries across the room, quickly pecking in the twenty digit random code at the keypad linked to the heavy metal door. Or, at least he thinks it’s random. It’s not like he can just _ask_ Lance.

The door beeps loudly, and he giggles as he slides through the small crack, leaving it open just slightly - he doesn’t know if it’s the same password to go inside his room as it is to enter it, and while the idea of Lance’s panic is kinda funny, it’s also too sad to think of for long. Lance wouldn't know what to do if Keith was missing. 

He rests his hand on the exposed brick wall, walking down the narrow, dark hallway singing the opening to the cartoon he was just watching. There’s another door about two lines into the song, but with just a regular wooden knob from when he had a bathroom door. Lance took it down about half a year ago, said he didn’t like Keith being able to hide from him during their time together. Personally, he thinks Lance is just clingy. 

Keith twists the knob, ducking into the main floor of the basement. The door is in a strange place, hidden between several strange twists of the concrete pillars and the large boxes filled with nothing useful Lance carefully stacked to keep it out of sight; he doesn’t know why he’s so paranoid, it’s not like anyone but Lance comes downstairs anyhow. No one did when Keith was upstairs, anyhow, not after they had the laundry moved to an alcove behind the bathroom.

Climbing the stairs up, Keith squints at the bright daylight flooding in as he opens the door leading into the kitchen, covering his sensitive eyes with a hand braced protectively over them. He leaves dirty footprints as he walks, tracking in dust and filth from the basement as he casually opens the fridge and pops open a jar of pickles, sitting happily at the breakfast bar and chowing down on his snack with his ankles crossed over each other up on the pristine marble countertop. He’s half tempted to turn on the stove and leave it on, wondering how long it would take before it caught fire, but that would worry Lance, and he doesn’t like to worry Lance. His poor Lance is already so stressed; the only time he can ever be himself is when he's with Keith. 

It’s so much warmer upstairs, and his muscles loosen as he stares out the window to the fenced in backyard, watching the wind sway the swingset and the garden patch Lance sometimes works in during summer. Everything is dead now, Keith muses happily, which just means Lance has more time to work on his ‘project’ downstairs. It also means that Lance won’t take him out in the yard for some fresh air, which he does miss in a sort of absent minded way. It's true that he likes going outside, but he also likes it when Lance spoils him, even if it always hurts a little bit. 

Putting the jar of pickles back in the fridge, he wanders towards the living room, passing by the taped up boxes stacked against the wall with a furious kick and flopping down on the couch with a happy sigh. So much more comfy! 

The remote digs in his back, and he grins as he tugs it out, kicking his bruised legs up until they rest on the wall, smearing more dirt over their precious white couches and white walls. He folds his arms snugly against his stomach, flipping the TV back to more cartoons with his head tilted back and his long hair spilling off the couch and onto the floor. On one commercial break, he sits up briefly, eyes stuck on the pamphlets declaring with bright and bold letters the wonders of living in San Francisco covering the coffee table. He just stares at it for a long moment, his expression flat, before he picks one up and starts to methodically rip it to shreds even when the commercial break ends. 

Yet even TV gets boring after a while, so he grabs a box of raspberries from the fridge and munches on them as he wanders around the house, considering if he should take anything while absently smashing some of Allura's fine china against the edge of the dining table, not even pausing when the shattered glass and porcelain nicks his arms. 

Out of the corner of the eye, he notices something pale, and his his grip on the tea cup in his hands loosens, clattering harmlessly to the ground as he lifts up the soft sweater off the dining room chair, slipping it on over his shirt and giggling at the way it flops over his hands, watching the sleeves sway as he skips around the house in endless circles. 

The carpet is silky under his feet, miles better than his ratty rug downstairs, and he focuses on the tickling sensation it makes with every step around the house with its wide open spaces with big windows and great green yards. Being Arizona borne, it took a long time to adjust to New York state's blistering summers and burning winters, the long stretches of grass and the trees bare branches cutting across the cloudy sky. 

Stopping in front of the doorframe to the kitchen, he runs his fingers down the numerous names, dating the girls ages and heights every year on the dot. About midway down, in a time years ago he can barely remember, his hand stills over the one irregularity in their perfect and ordinary life. 

_Keith, age eight_

Almost all of Keith’s previous homes were never so nice, they were always cramped and crowded. The nice houses went to the little ones, the ones the system didn’t get tired of yet; kids like Keith went to the ones where they wanted you out of sight and out of mind. 

It’s too quiet, with the TV off, he thinks. 

Keith wishes Lance were home. But Lance rarely ever spends the day with Keith - Keith is reserved for nights where Lance and Allura sleep in separate bedrooms and the girls are tucked away in bed, nights where Lance slips down like he is the ghost and not Keith. 

To outsiders, Keith thinks with no small amount of amusement, the McClains are a normal family with working parents and happy children. Not a single person suspects _them_ of all people to have a child living in the basement, through no fault of their own. Lance’s mask is stronger than most; he's been playing a part all of his life, dancing on invisible strings trying to feel fulfilled and satisfied with what the world declares as a measure of someone's happiness. 

Rubbing his feet against the carpet, he pulls the sweater down so it covers his underwear, padding up the stairs with his sticky fingers in his mouth. They haven’t changed any of the pictures on the walls since he last came upstairs, but he still lingers at the family portraits, pulling his wet fingers out of his mouth and brushing them against the glass encasing Lance’s smile eternally. He remembers when it was taken; they went on vacation to see Lance’s parents, leaving Keith alone in the basement for a _week_ , choking on his own loneliness and the non-stop _quiet_. It didn’t matter that Lance left him enough food, new toys and crayons, none of that mattered when he was _alone_!

After a long moment where he just stares at the photo, his face curdles up and he snatches it off the wall, hurling it down the stairs and watching it shatter against the tile landing with grim satisfaction. Lance will just think one of the girls did it and punish them for it instead. 

Keith doesn’t like Lance’s punishments. He rubs the scars around his wrists from where they used to be chained together for months, his fingers trailing down his arm and onto his belly, creeping under the sweater to the scar carved onto his hip. 

He lets the sweater fall down, forcing himself to keep walking to Lance’s room. Lance never told him why him and Allura sleep in separate bedrooms, just that they do and have been for as long as Keith has been in the house. Keith isn’t complaining; it means Lance can come see him almost every night without her knowing a thing. 

Though, he thinks as he stops in front of the framed photo of him on Lance’s dresser, she already does know about him. 

None of the anger is there when he picks up the photo of him and Lance, smiling slightly at their own twin beams. In it, Lance is grinning with his eyes closed in bliss, hugging a laughing Keith from behind. Behind them, Lance’s girls were also giggling, but their faces were blurred and out of focus, all of the attention on just the two of them. 

Almost all of his foster homes just wanted him out of sight and out of mind, but not Lance’s. He had a spot at the dinner table every night, his own room across from the girls, driven to every soccer game with them cheering in the stands for him. Those months with Lance’s family were bliss. 

Setting the photo back on the dresser, he spins around the room, inhaling the gentle smell of Lance’s cinnamon and saltwater, just so _Lance_ that it has him giggling in glee. He laughs as he lands in Lance’s unmade bed, almost too tall for him to climb in at all. The scent isn’t as strong there, not when Lance hasn’t slept in it all week, but he still inhales it anyhow, drool collecting in his mouth as his entire face heats up in a soft blush, small fists clenching in the fabric as his legs squirm against each other. 

The grandfather clock from downstairs gently ringing has him sitting up, brushing his messy hair back and swallowing back his saliva. Lance would be checking in on him soon, he needs to go back downstairs. The camera can’t see inside the bathroom where he left the chain, but Keith isn’t supposed to take a bath without Lance to help him, so it’d be weird for him to spend so much time in there. 

Keith leaves the half-empty carton of raspberries next to the photo of him and Lance with a smug smirk, hands clasped behind his back as he skips his way down the hallway. He stops in front of Allura’s door, just looking into her room, with it’s gauzy curtains and fluffy blankets, the complete opposite of Lance’s impersonal room and Keith’s bare one. Her room overlooks the backyard, and he grins so hard his mouth is splitting at the seams, turning on his heel and running down the hall towards the stairs, whooping the entire time as his long hair flies behind him like a flag in the wind. 

He soars clear over the shattered glass, screeching in pure joy as he rolls head over heels on the soft carpet. Keith scrambles to his feet, charging downstairs with another excited laugh, feeling like his veins are on fire as he runs straight past the unlocked front door and back into the basement, easily slipping the metal door shut behind him. It locks automatically, and the ankle cuff beeps as he reattaches it to his leg with a bright smile. 

Just in time too, as no sooner than ten minutes pass than does the camera turn on. Keith, from where he’s laying across the bed rereading one of his few books for the millionth time, grins and sits up at the sight of the red light. 

“Lance,” he coos, face flushed as the sweater slips up his thighs. There’s no audio in the room, but he’s confident Lance will be able to read his name on his lips. 

The red light flickers off again, and the smug grin widens, yanking the sweater back down again as he flops back into the bed, pressing the hardcover of the book against his smiling mouth. 

He can’t wait until Lance comes home. 

At around three, Allura arrives with one of the girls, and he stands on the table listening to them with a crinkle in his eyes as Allura stutters at the mess he left behind, quickly turning on her own daughter to save face. The girl protests loudly, hurt shining through her voice as she stomps out of the house and into the backyard where Lance kissed him so gently in the grass only a few months ago. It’s too bad he doesn’t have a view of it; his window only shows the small curve of the driveway, though it does mean that he sees Lance when he arrives home, all windswept hair and pushed up sleeves as he wrangles his daughters into the busy home. 

The house above him quickly descends into chaos, and he sits down cross legged on the table, holding his ankles loosely as he closes his eyes and just listens to the distant thrums of voices, only able to catch a syllable here and there. Like everyday before, they sit down like a proper family to eat dinner together, sharing stories as the husband and wife ignore the secret they have stored in the basement. And what a dirty little secret he is. 

It’s time for homework, and then a bath, the noise racketing up before quietly settling back into quiet. When he hears the keypad from the outside being tapped, he hops off of the table and stands in the center of the room, eagerly waiting with his entire body trembling like a live wire. 

Lance opens the door with wide eyes, his entire frame relaxing when he sees Keith waiting for him. Gently, he falls to his knees, putting down the wrapped plate in his hands on the floor and opening his arms expectantly. 

“Darling,” he whispers, and Keith _beams_ , throwing himself into Lance’s embrace. “I missed you.” 

“I missed you too.” Keith whispers back, shuddering as Lance kisses down his neck. “More than you know.” The last part is almost absent minded, more focused on the sensation of Lance holding him again and the earnest ache in his chest finally settling now that Lance is here. 

But Lance squeezes him once, a gentle acknowledgement that he heard him; that Keith isn’t alone in the feeling. 

Lance reheats the leftovers he saved Keith, meatloaf and potatoes and green beans, heavy enough to churn his stomach, but he smiles anyway through the mouthfuls, nuzzling into Lance’s caressing hands. What he can’t finish gets put in the fridge for lunch tomorrow, and Keith lets himself be picked up, throwing his arms around Lance’s neck with a cheerful hum. “I think it’s time we take a bath, sound good?” 

He nods his head, burying his face in the short hairs at the nape of Lance’s neck as he’s carried into the bathroom. Lance seats him down on the counter, tugging off his sweater with a inquisitive frown. “Where did you get this?” 

Keith shrugs with a small little smile playing around his mouth. “Dunno.” 

Lance stares at for a moment, obviously wondering just how Keith got a hold of something one of his girls was just wearing the day before. He shrugs after a moment, setting it aside with the frown still lingering. Keith longs to wipe it off his face, but he doesn’t protest either when Lance tugs off his shirt, not even when Lance leaves it wrapped around his head to input the code into the keypad to drag his underwear off. 

Silly Lance. 

The chain stays off as he’s guided into the lukewarm tub, his knees scrunched to his chest as Lance pushes him back, water flowing around his ears and his almost elbow length hair. It’s nothing like when Lance used to bathe him back when he lived upstairs, small and cramped and always dim, but for all of those reasons it’s _better_. He tilts his head up into Lance’s gentle touch, shivers wracking down his spine as those long nails dig along his scalp and scrub the hair wash in. Lance is always so gentle with him, watching him with attentive eyes as he washes the hair wash out and starts to lather his bruised and filthy skin. 

Keith’s own fingers fan out along his thighs and hips, tracing over the scar Lance gave him the first day he was locked in here. Like a bird of prey, Lance’s own eyes follow after his hands, and they soften as they too come to tenderly stroke the words written in his skin forever. 

Delicately, his piano fingers come up to grip his hands once rough with callouses, losing their toughness from years of the basement in favor of the softness of someone unaccustomed to tougher tasks than turning the pages of a book or holding a crayon. 

Blue eyes hold onto his own violet ones as they kiss his knuckles lovingly, keeping eye contact as his hands encircle the marks from the handcuffs, like a reminder that they’ve never even left. 

Keith leans into the touch, closing his eyes as Lance kisses him gently on the mouth, stroking his thumb along the scars with sheer reverence. 

It’s gone too soon, Lance leaning back with a softness around his eyes. “I still have to finish,” he chuckles when Keith grips the rim of the tub, fully prepared to keep kissing him. Lance gently, but firmly, pushes him back into the tub with a hand on his chest, and he sulks as the soap is washed off of him with gentle strokes, only brightening up when Lance helps him out of the tub to towel him down, keeping it wrapped around his shoulders as he's gently sat on the counter. 

Keith holds out his hands expectantly, delighting in Lance's chuckle as he digs the nail clipper out of the cupboard and cleans out the built up dirt with deft movement. For a moment, Keith imagines taking the nail clipper from Lance and using it to slit his own throat open, but the thought vanishes when Lance glances up at him from behind his bangs with a slight smile, and he feels his stomach swoops as he grins back. 

After his nails are done, he’s guided back to the main room by a hand on his hip, sitting between Lance’s legs on their bed as the adult lays out the selection of combs and brushes, those piano fingers hovering over them until he chooses one with broad teeth to straighten out his hair. 

Their ritual only happens about once a week, when the girls settle easily and Lance can spend more time lavishing him, spoiling him rotten with so much love it has Keith staring down at his knees with lowered eyes, the heat expanding in his chest until it feels ready to burst as Lance parts his hair with indefinite care and love, running it through his hair from the bottom up. 

Even when they don’t speak, Keith can hear Lance’s breathing, his gulps of air and heavy swallows, the rustle of his clothes and the satisfied rumbles deep in his chest as Keith’s hair finally curls softly down the small of his back. 

“Feels better?” Lance mumbles against the nape of his neck, and Keith cranes his neck to the side, letting the way his hair feels swept around his neck distract Lance from waiting for an answer. 

Lance audibly swallows, gathering his brushes in a hurry and returning to the bathroom to put everything away. Keith straightens out his legs, carefully leaning back against the mattress with a self-satisfied smile already resting on his lips as Lance leans against the empty doorway with his hip cocked and eyes dark. 

“God,” he says like a threat. “You’ll be the death of me.” 

With that, he unbuckles his jeans and makes his way towards Keith like a predator finally exhausting its prey after a long chase, and Keith’s smile grows, tilting his head back invitingly as Lance climbs on top of him. 

“I might just be.” Keith says just as darkly, encircling his arms around Lance’s neck and burying whatever expression he was making into the sensitive skin underneath his chin, biting down sharply. 

In a flash, Lance backhands him violently, his head slamming against the mattress with a sickening thump. “ _Don’t_ leave a mark, brat.” He hisses out, and Keith bares his bloody teeth in a mockery of a smile, even when Lance squeezes his wrist over the handcuff scar as a reminder of what happens when Keith can’t keep his hands to himself. 

They stare at each other for a while, both of them just panting in the silence as the aggression slowly melts off of Lance until he’s running one of his hands up and down Keith’s stomach soothingly, hushing him as he gently rests the other at the edges of his cheek and frowns at the bruise sure to form. 

“I’m sorry, darling.” He murmurs, sounding genuinely regretful as he strokes his thumb over the sore skin. Keith flinches, and Lance apologizes under his breath, licking the blood off of Keith’s teeth with lowered eyes. 

Chastised, Keith reluctantly breaks the kiss, shuddering as Lance instead focuses on sucking another hickey into his neck. “‘M sorry too.” 

“No, I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” Lance shakes his head firmly, smiling tightly when Keith glances down at him. It softens when Keith relaxes underneath him, reaching for one of Keith’s limp legs and lifting it up to kiss gently at his ankle. “I’m just…” He sighs against his leg, peppering more kisses up his pale skin. “Just a little stressed out, that’s all.” 

“Well,” Keith nudges his side with his knee, covering his smile with his hands as Lance looks up at him mischievously before biting into his calf, leaving another bruise painted across his limbs. Keith loves them, even when his skin is riddled with more blue from hickeys and bitemarks and handprints than actual skin. “Don’t think about it while you’re here. Just think about me.” 

Lance noses up his thigh, smirking up at him. “Gladly.” 

And they don’t talk at all, not until Lance’s face is buried into the crook of his neck, hips meeting his thighs as Keith bites his lip at the sharp burn in his belly; he's really too small for this, even years later. “You love me, right?” He asks desperately, nails digging into Lance’s skin. 

“I do,” Lance begins, but it’s not enough, it’s not _enough_. 

“How much do you love me?” Keith begs him, tipping his head up even as tears blur his vision of the ceiling. Lance tries to look up at him, but Keith just holds on tighter to him, never letting go. He can’t even if he wants to. “Do you love me more than _them_? Would you leave them for me? Would you kill them for me?” 

Lance swears, his hips stuttering. “Fuck, _Keith_ ,” he gasps, but Keith shudders, bearing down on him sharply in a way that always makes Lance’s shoulders tremble and moan in his ear. 

“You’re the only one who loves me, don’t leave me, please,” to his horror, the tears break free and slip down his cheeks as he chokes on a sob. “If you leave me, I’ll -”

Lance shuts him up with a kiss, pinning him down to the mattress with his own tearful eyes boring into him. “I won’t, I won’t -”

Keith drags his face closer, until their mouths are inches apart, sweat trickling down his spine and smothering him in Lance’s heat. He’s never felt cold when they’re like this, entwined so deeply that nothing else exists besides this small room in the basement with just the two of them. “Promise me.” He bites out against Lance’s lips, clawing into his cheeks. “ _Promise_ me!” 

“I promise!” Lance sobs, tightening his hands on Keith’s hips until he hisses out in pain from the old bruises and the new ones sure to form. “I promise!” 

He lets out quiet “ _uh, uh_ ” sounds as Lance rolls his hips against his, throwing his hands back to brace against the wall as Lance thrusts into him sharply until his throat burns with the weight of him moving back and forth inside of Keith. Lance muffles a shout into his shoulder, hands violently yanking Keith's hips down on him as Lance finally stills, spilling deep inside of him. They lay there for several moments, panting as Lance gives a few lazy thrusts before finally pulling out. Wincing, Keith flops an arm over his face shamefully as Lance leaves for a wet washcloth like usual, his bottom half sore and stinging beyond belief.

They don’t say anything as Lance spreads Keith’s legs, wiping up the mess as best he can before throwing the filthy washcloth towards the general direction of the bathroom, slumping down next to him with a concerned frown. “What was that all about?” Lance asks, throwing an arm over his hip, his fingers tracing over the word written there.

Keith gently rests his hand over Lance’s, letting the adult take his smaller hands and guide them in a shape he knows well, what he smooths his fingers over everyday to comfort himself. 

_L a n c e_

“Nothing,” he lies, burying his face in Lance’s chest with tightly shut eyes. “I’m just…scared, that’s all.” 

Lance gently plays with his sweat soaked hair, kissing his forehead like he used to when he tucked Keith into bed every night upstairs. It started with forehead kisses that grew into touches on his inner legs into hands inside his underwear, and then Lance was climbing into his bed every night and teaching him how to make him feel good, and Keith didn’t _care_ because it meant he was Lance’s favorite and that meant _everything_ to him then. It still does. 

“I would never leave you darling, I love you so goddamn much.” Lance vows to him weakly with so much heartache that it makes Keith’s eyes water again, both of them obviously thinking of things so far out of their control from this small room in the basement. He tucks his face in Keith’s messy hair, holding him tightly against him with frenzied hands. “You’re the only one I feel this way for. I’m wearing a lie with everyone but you, fuck, I didn’t know I could love someone like I love you.” 

Oh, Keith knows this. Knows this in the ache in the base of his spine, in the heartache threatening to rip him apart and the muffled whines clenched down between his teeth. “Will you never leave me alone?” He asks feebly. 

Lance yanks his head up, kissing him on his slack mouth like a promise. He doesn’t say anything when they separate, but neither does Keith as his head is once again tucked underneath Lance’s chin, a silent order that it’s time for sleep. 

It takes a little while, but Lance eventually falls asleep, his arm heavy over Keith’s waist and exhaling warm air on his bangs with every breath. Keith’s envious; his brain is going a mile a minute with no sign of stopping. He twirls a couple of Lance’s loose strands of hair between his fingers, smiling slightly despite himself. Allura will never see Lance like this, never understand the depths of Lance’s love for him. 

Keith remembers seeing her at her bedroom window, nightgown hanging loose around her frame as she stared at them with hateful eyes as Lance pampered kisses across his stomach with precious giggles in the thick dirt of the garden, just weeks after Keith went ‘missing’. And before that, her shadow in the doorway of his room upstairs, Lance and her meeting eyes with furious glares as Keith’s whines underneath him from behind his tightly clasped hands, too hot and oversensitive as Lance thrusts sharply inside of him, hard enough to rattle the bedframe and leave Keith a whimpering mess until he came deep inside of him, his wife’s shadow behind them the entire time. 

Allura knows full well just who Lance has in the basement, and what he’s doing with him. 

That’s why she’s moving them to San Francisco for her new job. 

Lance never told him, never had to. Allura made it plenty clear in her pamphlets and boxes she left out for Keith to find. There’s no feasible way for Lance to transport him and she knows it. 

Perhaps she thinks Lance will kill him and rid them of the problem once and for all. So they can go back to their everyday happy lives and not have to ignore the elephant in the basement. A part of him wonders if she’s jealous that her husband would rather be with a wild child they took in with pity heavy in their mouths than his lawfully wedded wife and children. 

What a dirty family they are. 

To outsiders, the McClains are a normal family with working parents and happy children, except that Daddy loved his little foster son a little more than what most people would approve of. Daddy loved to buy his foster son everything he wanted and paid special attention to him, showering him with praise and affection until his foster son would have said yes to everything. 

And Keith did say yes to everything. Even walking into this room voluntarily when it was just a hole in the ground and a metal door, with Lance kneeling in front of him begging him with wails wracking his entire frame. So he walked into this room with his head high, even when Lance barred the window and put a cuff on his ankle and took away the bathroom door. 

Because Lance loves Keith. 

Keith cups Lance’s sleeping face, watching the fluttering of his eyelashes and the bob of his throat. Slowly, his hand runs down Lance’s neck, resting against the word carved underneath his collarbone, right above his heart. He did it himself as soon as the scabs on his hip healed enough for him to straddle Lance’s chest, both of their blood dripping on the mattress as he carefully marked Lance’s chest. 

They need each other. And Keith will _never_ be abandoned again. 

He won’t let it. He’ll burn this house down to the ground first. 

“Goodnight, Lance.” He whispers, his eyes soft as he rubs his fingertips against the single, most meaningful word in Lance’s previously empty and emotionless life: 

_K e i t h_

Smiling to himself serenely, he throws an arm over Lance’s waist and slides up as close as he can to him, kissing his scar with far more gentleness than he ever thought he had. 

It’s all up to Lance now. 

Allura and the girls? Everything he’s worked for in life, everything he thought he cared for until he fell in love with his foster son?

Or Keith?

Well, it doesn’t matter much anyway, Keith muses. His smile slowly grows, crawling up his face like spiders until the edges of his lips crack, his violet eyes burning bright with ecstasy in the dark and bitterly cold basement. 

He’ll have Lance in whatever way he can. Even if it means killing him and the entire damn family. 

Keith giggles to himself, finally closing his eyes and settling down for the night. His palms press into the arch of Lance’s back, turning his head to rest his cheek right over the scar of his name with a content hum. “I love you too.” 

  
  
  
  



End file.
